If ever there were a case for “if something’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing,” it’s MobLand. I don’t know who first said it—someone impersonating Guy Ritchie, probably. Of all Ritchie’s gangland offspring, MobLand sits at the very tip—the tip of the iceberg, tip of the tongue, anonymous tip.
It has already been tipped for awards this season. Season 3 is understood to be in production, due sometime in late 2027. But as the second outing hurtles towards its finale this month, the wait looks positively Homeric.
So, in the spirit of overdoing, here are a few spin-offs nobody asked for but richly deserve. Newgate, the early 2000s. Kevin is a broken young man after an assault by a mean prison guard called Rusby (remember him?
Kevin kills him in revenge in MobLand season 1), and he is one bad night from hanging himself with a bedsheet. His cellmate Harry, a quiet new arrival with a thousand-yard stare, talks him down. Then he does something tougher and kinder: he decides Kevin is going to live, whether Kevin likes it or not.
What follows is a double act forged in a concrete box. Harry fights, bargains and bluffs his way up the wing’s pecking order, while Kevin learns to be a person again, ultimately becoming his gobby, hapless sidekick. Between the long, dark stretches in their cell come the scams, the contraband and the beatings.
A snooker table in the rec room becomes a secret casino; a rival lag turns out to be a secret snitch; a posh fraudster inmate teaches Harry to talk like an Etonian. Kevin finds his voice as a late-night prison-radio DJ. Slowly, we watch Harry being hammered into the man that Conrad will later admire.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
